CARY, Ill. — Metra’s board has approved plans for a new station for this community on the commuter railroad’s Union Pacific Northwest Line, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The new station will solve a long-standing flaw with the building it will replace. Currently, the station is on the opposite side of the tracks from where passengers wait for inbound trains, requiring them to either wait in an unprotected area or to cross as the train approaches. The new station will provide waiting space for passengers where it is most needed.
Metra will provide $2 million toward the $2.4 million cost of the new facility. Construction will begin this summer and take about a year. The existing station will be torn down once the new one is complete.
Also on the UP Northwest line, renovations to the Cumberland station in Des Plaines could be complete by August. Work remaining includes a new roof and walkways and railing to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Trailers are providing shelter until the $300,000 project, which began in September, can be completed.
We here in southern Wisconsin would really appreciate an extension of the UP northwest line; only 28 miles of track from Harvard to Janesville. A previous state Senator who represented the area actually got a project funded to investigate the possibility. Since METRA is an Illinois governmental entity. It’s operating authority ends at the state line; (the service to Kenosha in SE Wisconsin exists solely because that’s where the CNW built it’s yard years ago and Netra “grandfathered it in) and Wisconsin didn’t have a mechanism to fund the service extension. So – here we sit!!
UPNW is a great, straight stretch of track, shame it stops at Harvard. A little effort could get passenger rail to Janesville and Madison and beyond. Someday a crossover and grade-separation at Deval Crossing would do wonders.
It certainly was a historical pattern for the Northwestern suburban stations in the Chicago area to be built on the ‘inbound’ side of the tracks. I seem to recall being once told that it was the location of station buildings that determined–after traffic had led to double-tracking, to the left-hand operation of the C& NW. There are other stories about English investors, but since many railroads had investors from across the pond, one doubts that that was the reason.
A new station on the North (Inbound) side of the tracks is going to be a very narrow building. If one looks at Google maps, it appears there is less than 20 ft of open space between the existing narrow platform and the busy multi lane Northwest highway. The highway has no sidewalk on its railroad side so all access to any new depot will be via the platform.